London MPACers are continuing their quest to empower the Muslim communities to defend themselves in the face of discriminatory legislation.

Since 2001, a whole host of draconian laws have been passed by an authoritarian government intent on undermining all of our civil liberties.

Whilst Muslims rightly feel targeted by this legislation, the wider public have been drawn into a false sense of security, that these laws are needed to protect everyone from fanatics hell-bent on destroying our way of life and that these laws will only be used on “Islamic Extremists”.

Whilst Muslims are the catalysts for the appearance of these laws, every single person in the UK is at risk of falling foul of them. As recently as this past summer, activists protesting at the environmental damage caused by the air industry at London’s Heathrow airport, were arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Yesterday's Queen's speech should have had alarm bells ringing in our ears, although the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is playing coy that the aim of the Government is to introduce an increase in the limit that people can be held without charge from the current 28 days to 56 days. Pressed to give the Government's position on how long the current limit should be extended by, she refused to specify a figure. "The answer is I don't know," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

  It is a fact that the Labour Party tried to extend the limit to 90 days in 2005, but faced a severe backlash from its own members in Parliament, and thus recorded an embarrassing defeat to the otherwise undefeated record of “Teflon Tony”.

According to the Government's own statistics and figures, a substantial proportion of those arrested for terrorism-related offences are released without charge. Therefore, does it make any sense to increase the period of pre-charge detention, subjecting innocent persons to lengthy incarceration, without any shred of real proof?

Instead of these policies making us feel safer, we feel more collectively under attack than ever before. The anti-Muslim feeling that has been allowed to fester has manifested itself within a general Islamophobic outlook. Unprovoked verbal abuse and hate-inspired violence against the Muslim communities is on the increase. Muslim women particularly suffered, some having their headscarves ripped off and abuse hurled at them, Mosques being firebombed, Muslim males with beards are viewed with contempt and suspicion and even our Mosque Imams have been hospitalised after being brutally beaten.

We Muslims cannot allow ourselves to wallow in victim mentality. This is not a time for self-pity, nor is it a time to be paralysed by fear. The worst possible scenario is beginning to unfold before our very eyes. We as citizens in this country are being transformed to passive victims paralysed by fear. We are playing into the hands of those who champion the “global clash of civilisations” theory. We are letting them win if we accept to be demonised, to be shown as caricatures and let suspicion towards us rise.

We have been campaigning tirelessly to work with our Mosques, to help and assist wherever we can to ensure that we are in a position to defend ourselves when we find ourselves under attack.

We have constantly stressed that our Mosques have to be the hub of the community. It’s not just a place of prayer that we visit on the odd occasion, but should be the focal point of our communities. Alhumdullilah (Praise to Allah) that thanks to London MPACers, more and more Mosques are willing to defend their own rights and that of their congregation and wider community.

The unrelenting spotlight that we find ourselves under provides us with a wonderful opportunity to be proactive. If the slightest of gestures is noticed and symbolised, Muslims need only resolve to make the symbolism positive. This intense scrutiny provides tremendous educative potential and, ironically, might even be the Muslims greatest asset in countering prejudice.

The onus is on us to make it so.

What are we going to do about it?

Maybe you’ll send a letter to the Police Commissioner?

Or write an article in your local newspaper?

Maybe you’ll tell your local Imam and ask him to alert the congregation to the news?

Or maybe you’ll join the London MPACUK team and get involved in our pre-emptive lobbying campaign where we are currently engaging local mosques to petition their local MPs to ensure that the detention without trial time limit is not increased, that the encroaching anti-terror legislation is curtailed and that stop-and-search is not used to vilify and single-out Muslims.

Would you like to walk with us, as we defend the rights of your fellow Muslims?

Contact us at info@mpacuk.org to join MPACUK in campaigning against increasing the maximum limit of pre-charge detention.

Get involved and help our mosques to get active so that we can make every mosque into an institution for the instruction of all our religious affairs including the one which demands that we seek justice in ourselves and in our community.

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